Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed, potshots taken, or scientific views articulated are mine, and need not represent the opinions, potshots, or scientific views of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, or the Federal Reserve System.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Krugman's Insight

And Brad is right: if you’ve reached the point where you don’t pay attention to anything that might disturb your orthodoxy, you’re not doing science, you’re not even pursuing a discipline. All you’re doing is perpetuating a smug, closed-minded sect.

I guess the interesting question is: where do Stephen Williamson and Krugman get their ideological predispositions from ? Is it some innate psychological drives or what ? This is clearly part of a wider need for an economic model of ideological choice - do people make rational choices of ideology ?For example, I seem to remember reading a paper that argued that opinion polls found that, compared to Americans, a majority of French citizens do not believe in a "just world" - that you get what you deserve, that hard work pays off. Thus, French citizens are more predisposed to wealth redistribution.

I can't speak for Krugman obviously. I have a political background. I grew up in Canada and am not offended by having the government do some things that the average American would rather it did not do. My parents and grandparents were members of the Liberal Party (to the left of the Democratic Party), and I even had some relatives who worked for the NDP (i.e. socialists). When I do economics, I try to be an objective scientist.